


Four Times At The Crossroads

by L_M_Biggs



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Southern Gothic AU, an anon asked that I post it here, essentially fantastic beasts but percival goes to the south after his face was stolen, originally written for tumblr, very short and very prosey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-01-14
Packaged: 2019-03-04 16:20:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13368528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/L_M_Biggs/pseuds/L_M_Biggs
Summary: They say that if you meet a Devil at the crossroads four times then it will steal your soul away. The fourth night Credence passes the man’s home he is called out to and he pauses, knowing that in that moment his very own immortal soul hangs in a precarious balance.He turns and the scales tip.





	Four Times At The Crossroads

There is a house in Mississippi with a wrought iron gate that spells out, in thick black letters “New Salem”. Mary-Lou Barebone, the estranged daughter of her preacher father, sinful her own mind in only that she had dared to preach the word of god as a woman and not a proper priest, owns the house, the gate, and the barren property within. She’s the proprietor of the New Salem Philanthropic Society and Orphanage for Despondent Youth, a name so long that most people call it simply “New Salem” like the gate. 

Precisely ten miles away at the crossroads you will come across the Graves Sugar Plantation, languishing away under the attention of the current owner, a respectable society man named Percival Graves, all the way from New York City. He’s here now to rest and recuperate after a harrowing adventure involving a man wearing his face, a plot to infiltrate the White House, and an extremist preaching his own hateful gospel in the voice of Percival Graves.

That doesn’t matter, not anymore, not with Percival running from his lofty brownstone to the dying historic home.

Credence walked by the house every day, once in the morning to head into town, once at night on his way back, and had never seen lights on or windows open in the enormous house.

And then one day a man was there. With dark, deep eyes and silver at his temples and wearing a sharp, sleek suit that was too black and heavy for the southern heat. His collar had been edged in sweat and his face glistening with it as he stood on the porch and watched Credence pass by. 

They say that if you meet a Devil at the crossroads four times then it will steal your soul away. The fourth night Credence passes the man’s home he is called out to and he pauses, knowing that in that moment his very own immortal soul hangs in a precarious balance. 

He turns and the scales tip. 

He’s not sure if the mysterious Percival Graves is the Devil, but the man is certainly strange, his home filled with many strange things. Cards with peculiar pictures, paintings that if you look at them indirectly seem to move, glistening gold and brass and silver trinkets used to calculate the stars and other such functions. 

He plies Credence with a glass of lemonade, sugar’d sweetly and with only a splash of whiskey, and a piece of angel cake, light and decadent, and asks about the flyers in his hands, asks about Credence himself, seems desperate for the company. 

And Credence is captivated by the breadth of his shoulders and the set of his jaw, the way that he seems so firm and broad and steady, as if a hurricane couldn’t move him from his stance. 

When he kisses Credence the boy’s breath catches in his throat and he can barely breathe through his shock, feeling the man’s warm palms upon his jaw, his neck, his shoulders, pulling him closer as Credence kisses him back. 

“Please,” The man whispers, teeth scraping Credence’s lower lip and voice rougher than it was a moment ago, ravenous and starved. “Please, I need this. Anything you want, just give me this.”

And Credence wonders why the Devil asked him for this. Certainly he would have so many other choices. Yet here he is, panting into Credence’s gasping mouth, pressing him to the man’s sweat-dampened shirt, firm too-hot hands grasping at Credence’s own thin suit, pulling the black jacket off slowly, their hands tangled up for a moment before the fabric is thrown aside. 

“Why?”

“I need someone to touch me. To remind me that I’m real.”

So Credence does, in shy passes at first then firmer, longer strokes of his palms, grabbing at Mr. Graves’ shoulders and neck and jaw, dragging their mouths together and gasping for breath as the man delves into his mouth and steals his kisses, his breaths. They fall to the hard wooden floor but Credence doesn’t feel the impact, doesn’t feel anything but the Devil’s mouth as it burns against his own, pulling back as Mr. Graves pants and stares at him then reaches up to rip his shirt open, buttons flying freely and tie cast aside carelessly. 

He lays upon the cool wood and when the man finally (finally, after fingers and tongue and an achingly slow press) thrusts into him he knows that his soul has been blackened now, can feel the writhing of something dark and forbidden in his blood, awakened by the searing kisses of the man. He can hear his mother screaming about inverts, about the Devil, about witches and god-fearing men who succumb to sin, and thinks that maybe he wouldn’t mind if this was what it was like to fall from grace. 

He didn’t doubt that the fires of hell would hurt less than Mary-Lou’s strict purity.


End file.
